Thermodynamic Optimization of a Combined Cooling and Power System Utilizing Industrial Waste Heat

Cascade utilization is the most promising solution for efficient recovery of industrial waste heat. In this paper, a combined cooling and power (CCP) system including an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and an absorption refrigeration cycle (ARC) is proposed, aiming to realize the cascade utilization of efficient utilization of low-grade flue gas. With the objective of maximizing the equivalent specific net power output, a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed to optimize the operation parameters of the proposed system and the composition and mass fractions of zeotropic working fluid. The results indicate that the proposed system can realize efficient cascade utilization for flue gas waste heat energy. The optimized proposed system achieves a specific net power output of 6.09 kW/kgFG of a specific refrigeration capacity of 27.65 kW/kgFG. Additionally, heat exchanger exergy losses account for 73.7% and 53.6% of the total exergy losses in the ORC and ABR subsystems, respectively. Therefore, optimizing the heat exchanger equipment is a feasible approach to further enhance the thermodynamic performance of the proposed system.